For the Glory of the Celts
by MSK42
Summary: And now for something completely different. The Scots have risen, no longer content laying base to outside forces threatening to destroy them. Now, Scotland rises towards its destiny of restoring the Celtic peoples to prominence in Europe by any means necessary... (This story is an excuse to publish an alternate history in fanfiction form).
1. James II (1444 - 1469)

In the year 1444 AD, the Kingdom of Scotland had very little to pride itself over, other than the fact that it still existed north of England, despite England's best efforts. Its monarch was the somewhat unremarkable King James II of the House of Stuart, reigning since 1437 from the tender age of 6. At the very young age of 14, James II ruled a nation considered a backwater in Europe.

That changed on the 11th of November, 1444.

That night, the young King claimed to have received a vision from God, stating that his destiny was to save his people from oblivion, that Scotland was the last hope of the Celtic peoples. He also claimed that if he would work to restore the Celtic people, then he would hold God's favor in all his endeavours.

To that end, in 1445, King James II declared war on Antrim as a means to gain a foothold in Ireland, thus beginning the Irish Wars. The wars would rage for 15 years, with the Scottish continuing their actions against the Irish Clans and Lordships. Where the English had failed for centuries, the Scottish had managed to successfully execute within 15 years. Truly, it seemed that God was on the side of the Scots.

By 1453, most of Ireland had been subdued, but one obstacle remained: the Pale of Dublin, the last area of actual English control on the island. Scotland, however, knew that the Irish Clans were one thing, but England was another problem entirely. To try and find a solution to the eventual problem, Scotland approached France to turn its guarantee of independence into a proper alliance, reforming the Auld Alliance between Scotland and France. The motion was successful, as France also had eyes on the English holdings in Normandy and Gascogne.

In 1460, the Scottish armies had finally subdued all of Ireland outside the Pale, and had moved its armies to the English Border. Scotland, however, waited for France to make the first move. It came in 1462, when the French invaded Normandy and Gascogne. The English began moving as many of their troops to the mainland, and in 1463, the Scots pounced, honoring their alliance and invading Northumberland and the Pale.

The First Scottish Conquest lasted for 5 years. During which, the bulk of English forces were engaged by the French, allowing the Scots to invade as far south as Wales, capturing Cardiff. Dublin fell in 1466, and the Isle of Man was captured by an assault in 1467. The English had been beaten into submission, and surrendered most of Northumberland, northern Wales, the Pale of Dublin, and the Isle of Man to the Scots. In the French part of the war, England lost all its mainland territories barring the Pale of Calais to France.

With England beaten into submission, the Scots took the opportunity to begin integrating the newly conquered territories into its realm. Each new territory was created as a separate "Realm" within Scotland. Ireland was a separate entity within Scotland from Scotland proper, just as Northumberland was, Northern Wales, and the Isle of Man. These territories were given a larger degree of autonomy within Scotland in order to pacify the newly conquered lands.

Scotland had risen from being a European backwater to a rising power. England was on the retreat, and James II had become loved by the denizens of the Scottish homeland as the greatest King of Scots that had ever lived. Sadly, however, James II died in 1469. His son, James III, ascended to the throne. And with him, a new, grander idea came into position, one that sought to secure the "glory of the Celts" once and for all.


	2. James III (1469 - 1501)

In 1469, James III became King of Scots. James III had been raised by his father to believe in the concept that Scotland was on a divinely ordained path to restore the glorious mantle of the Celtic peoples. To this end, James III became the first Scottish King in many centuries to learn to speak Scots Gaelic, and also taught his children Gaelic, including his heir Prince James and his second child Princess Mary.

By 1470, King James III was brought to a negotiating table by France to negotiate a peace with the Danes, traditional rivals with the Scots. In the process, James III and Christian I of Denmark came to an agreement that included the marriage of the Danish Princess Margaret to Prince James, creating a dynastic link. As part of Princess Margaret's dowry, the Orkneys and the Shetlands were turned over to Scotland, having been split from Norway and being integrated into Scotland.

James III would not content himself with merely two island chains, and had soon turned his attentions south to England. The destruction of most of England's armed forces, when combined with the death of Henry IV without an heir, had triggered a Succession Crisis in England between the House of York and the House of Lancashire. The English Parliament had supported the rise of King Thomas I of Lancashire, but his hold over England was unsteady.

Seeing an opportunity, the Scots sent diplomatic feelers to France to see if they would help Scotland in a second Anglo-Scottish War, but the French felt that Scotland could manage another war with England on its own. While this was true, James III felt snubbed by the French, and thus elected to go at the English alone.

The War of the Roses continued into 1476, and came to a violent climax with the assassination of King Thomas I by an agent of the House of York. Thomas I had no heirs, thus leaving the English throne temporarily empty. James III seized the chance, and declared war on England in 1477, thus launching the Second Scottish Conquest. This time, however, the English forces, while still divided, found a common enemy in the Scots. The Scots sent an assault on the English fortress in the Marches, while trying to keep the English from launching their own incursion into Northumberland. The siege lasted until the winter of 1477, leading to the Scots leading an invasion of the rest of England. By the end of 1479, Scotland had sent the last of English forces in a shattered retreat to London, which was soon put under siege.

Inside London, King Charles I of Lancaster managed to capture the English throne, but that meant very little by 1480, when Scotland had London surrounded and under siege. The forces of England had been decimated, and finally admitting defeat, Charles I fled to Calais, the one area not under assault by the Scots. London fell in the summer of 1480, thus bringing England to its knees. Charles I returned to London when peace was offered, but he was soon captured and forced to sign a peace that resulted in the total annexation of what was left of England by Scotland. Calais was turned over to the French, bringing an end to England as a sovereign state.

James III was incredibly pleased by his accomplishment of bringing all of the British Isles under Scottish control, but one last expansion came under his regime. The small Kingdom of Brittany on the European mainland feared an invasion by its much stronger neighbor of Provence. Knowing that James III proclaimed that all of the Celts were to be uplifted by Scotland, Brittany asked for annexation by Scotland in 1482. Happily, James III agreed, finalizing the expansion of Scotland to control all Celtic peoples left in Europe. A lasting peace had finally been achieved.

However, a problem soon arose. Prince James, heir to the Scottish throne and presumptive James IV, died in a hunting accident in 1484. James III tried desperately to produce a new heir, but his wife tragically only had 5 stillborn children between 1485 and 1491. There was only one option left to continue the Stuart Dynasty, and it was one James III was loathe to take: his one remaining child, Princess Mary.

Mary was patient, however, and perfectly content to wait out her father. Her mother had become too old to produce any more children by 1493, and thus, her father would have no other option. Her plan was realized when in 1495, in a last-ditch effort to secure the throne for the Stuarts once again, James III asked for and miraculously received the blessing of the Pope to allow Princess Mary to take the throne.

James III died in 1501. Upon his death, the Scottish Parliament honored his wishes, and coronated Princess Mary as Mary I, Queen of Scots. A new world would be opened under her reign as Queen Regnant, at home and abroad.


	3. Mary I (1501 - 1532)

Mary I, Queen of Scots, had risen to become the first Queen Regnant of Scotland. She also believed in the divine ordainment of the Celts, and spoke Scots Gaelic as well as she did English. And at just 23 years old, she was a very young woman, with plenty of time to produce an heir to the throne and to reign beyond that. The Kingdom of Scotland had risen to great prominence in Europe by conquering the British Isles and annexing Brittany, forming a pan-Celtic nation. Mary I wanted to take it a step further.

In 1502, Mary I addressed the Scottish Parliament for the reformation of the Kingdom of Scotland into a new Celtic nation. The Parliament loved the idea, and soon, Mary I traveled to Rome personally to ask Pope Julius II for his blessing in reforming Scotland. To her immense surprise, the Pope was entirely receptive to elevating Scotland to more than just a Kingdom. The Pope, seeing Scotland as a glorious nation, conferred the title of "Empress" upon Mary I. When she returned to Edinburgh, Mary I was hailed as Mary I, Empress of all Celts, an elevated form of Queen of Scots. The Kingdom of Scotland was consequently reorganized as the Empire of all Celts, or simply the Celtic Empire.

In 1492, the Spanish-Italian navigator Christopher Columbus stumbled upon the Carribean, and claimed much of it for the Spanish crown. Mary I wished for the same with the Celts, and arranged for a Celtic navigator from England, William Thomas, to find a northern and possibly shorter route to the continent named by many mapmakers as "America". Thomas found a route by tracing a fabled Danish route to a land called "Vinland". When Thomas made landfall, he named the land "Nova Scotia" and claimed it in the name of Empress Mary I.

Pleased with her explorer's work, she arranged for a colonial ship to sail for Nova Scotia and establish a permanent colony. The colonists arrived in 1509, establishing Marytown, named for their Empress, and promptly lost half of its population in the winter of 1509. Completely unprepared for the Winter, their colony was nearly lost to oblivion. It was only through dogged determination that the Celtic colonists survived with 59 people. The native Mi'kmaq tribe took pity on the colonists, and began teaching them to survive in the New World.

One of the things shown to the colonists was how beavers, highly plentiful in North America, could be skinned and their pelts used for warm clothes. The colonists soon found a new industry in producing beaver pelts, and were able to trap so many that they were able to send a small supply back to the Celtic homeland with a resupply ship in 1510. Mary I was so pleased with the beaver furs that she had some of them made into a dress that she would wear as a means of displaying the new wealth her colonists had found in North America.

Mary I, however, also faced some unrest at home. Many say a woman as being unfit to rule the Empire, and sought to place Mary I's son James on the throne as Emperor, with some groups seeing the whole of the Celtic Empire as illegitimate, and to place Prince James on the throne of a returned Kingdom of Scotland. A small rebellion to the effect of the former group broke out in Cornwall in 1521, which Mary I saw no problem in putting down with military force. This incident lead many of her opponents to label her "The Celtic She-Wolf", which she accepted as an honor, showing her ability to rule as any man could.

The Celtic colony in Nova Scotia continued developing with more colonists, and soon, more settlements had been established over the whole of the region. Fur-trapping had proliferated just as tobacco had proliferated in the new Spanish colonies. But Mary I wished for Scotland to produce its own tobacco and sugarcane, and claimed the island the Spanish called "Cuba" as the island of "New Britain", with the smaller island of Jamaica being claimed as "New Ireland". These two islands soon found a new influx of Celtic settlers, with towns and plantations being founded across the islands. Not only were tobacco and sugar grown by the end of 1530, but the Celts had managed to get their hands on cocoa seeds, and Celtic production of chocolate quickly began in earnest.

By the time of Mary I's death in 1532, the Scots had come to predominate in a new Celtic Empire that not only ruled as an Empire at home, but had begun colonization overseas along with the Spanish and Portuguese. Mary I soon passed into Celtic history as "The Good Empress", having created a golden age for the Celtic peoples.


	4. James IV (1532 - 1546)

James IV inherited a throne that had been filled by a giant of a woman. Mary I was already known as the most powerful woman in western Europe since the times of the Roman Empire, and possibly before. He had a massive mantle to live up to. He was also notable for being the first monarch of the now Imperial House of Stuart to speak Scots Gaelic as his first language. Scots Gaelic had also descended from the Highlands and was becoming increasingly common among the Scottish commoners.

To try and prove his ability to reign, James IV began to increase the fervency of the Celtic colonization efforts in North America, granting an immense number of charters for cities in New Britain and New Ireland, as well as Nova Scotia. The colonization efforts, however, soon put the Celts into a rivalry with the Spanish, which brought the Celts closer into their alliance with the French, as France was likewise a rival with Spain. And to further complicate matters, Portugal had long resented the Celts for eliminating their old ally of England, thus driving Spain and Portugal closer together.

If it had not been for the presence of French support for the Celts, the Iberians would likely have declared war. France's power served as a deterrent to Iberian aggression, thus allowing the Celts to peacefully develop their islands in the Caribbean. At the same time, it allowed France to claim its own islands, securing most of the Lesser Antilles into its control, beginning its own attempts to develop a tobacco and sugar industry. And seeing the Celtic success in Nova Scotia's fur-trapping industry, France set up its own colony on the St. Lawrence Seaway, which they named "Canadá", the principal city being Quebec.

James IV spent most of his reign attempting to keep France and the Celts from going to war with Spain and Portugal, and was for the most part successful in this endeavor. Nova Scotia also continued developing, soon becoming the most populous colony of the Celtic Empire. Celtic beaver furs were soon worn by most of the royalty and nobility of Europe, granting further honor to the Celts.

In 1541, tensions finally began to break down between the Franco-Celtic bloc and the Iberian bloc. Spain, now under the jingoistic King Philip I, sought to conquer the Celtic holdings in the Caribbean as well as taking hold of the French Antilles. Spain wasted no time in declaring war on the Celts and the French, and brought Portugal into the conflict as well. James IV spent the last 5 years of his reign trying to manage the war along with France. Brittany provided a landing ground for Celtic soldiers, who would then march through France towards Spain.

The battle deadlocked in the Pyrenees for many years, until French forces finally broke through in the east and took control of the city of Barcelona. Celtic soldiers also marched through Navarra, with both sides moving towards Madrid. However, the war drained the health of James IV, who died at the age of 38 in 1546. His son, Charles I, inherited the massive Iberian War, one that was rapidly turning in favor of the Celts and French.


	5. Charles I (1546 - 1573)

With the Iberian War dragging on, Charles I sought to bring a complete victory on Spain and Portugal. The autumn of 1546 saw a combined Franco-Celtic drive on the city of Madrid, leading a siege of the city that ended with an assault in early 1547. Spain was forced to surrender, but Portugal stubbornly held out. Seeing this, Charles I sent an order to march on Lisbon, which was dutifully carried out by Celtic forces.

Portugal was cut in half by occupying forces, which managed to bring down Lisbon and thus, the Kingdom of Portugal was forced to surrender. The war was initially planned to end with a _status quo ante bellum_ , but the Celts seized on the chance to draw a new line in South America. The Portuguese and the Spanish had divided the continent with the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, but the Celts included a clause in the Treaty of Lisbon (1547) that declared the Celts would be granted a colony at the mouth of the Amazon River, with the whole of the largely uncharted Amazon region being ceded as a Celtic colonial claim. Celtic colonists set out for the Amazon Delta later that year.

As the Celtic Colonial Empire continued growing and expanding, the Celtic colonies in Nova Scotia soon reached a combined total population of 4,300. With a booming population, a delegation from the colonies petitioned Charles I for the ability to create a moderately self-governing colonial assembly, as to better coordinate the operations of their settlements. Charles I, a fan of decentralized control in a nation, agreed, and signed to a charter officially consolidating the Celtic settlements in Nova Scotia as the Dominion of Borealia. Shortly after this, Celtic holdings in Cuba and Jamaica also incorporated into the Dominion of Carribea.

The Celtic colony in the Amazon quickly began growing as a source of tropical wood, which was highly desirable in making furniture with rich colors. When it petitioned and received a colonial charter, it was named the Dominion of Meridia, as it sat roughly on the equator, or the "meridian". While the settlements at the mouth of the Amazon managed to develop at a decent pace, colonists struggled to settle upriver, battling the rainforest and its efforts were largely unsuccessful, and while the Amazon remained a Celtic claim, it remained largely unsettled.

However, a new problem broke out at home. In northern Germany, the Protestant Reformation was sweeping like wildfire. The Celtic peoples soon began to see a lot of truth in the words of the Reformers, and by the end of 1570, a very large portion of the population had begun to call for the Celtic Empire to adopt a Protestant faith. Charles I, however, was a devout Catholic, and refused to acknowledge any Protestant faiths or beliefs. This quickly began to ruin his reputation in the Empire, who began calling for his abdication. In 1573, a rebellion in Edinburgh grew out of control, leading to the assassination of Charles I by an angry mob. His son, Charles II, became the Emperor of all Celts, the leader of a nation divided by religious conflict.


	6. Charles II (1573 - 1590)

Charles II at once faced a divided nation. England, lowlands Scotland, and Dublin had converted largely to a miasma of Protestant faiths, while Ireland at-large, the Scottish Highlands, Brittany, and Wales remained largely Catholic. Charles II was personally sympathetic to the Protestant faiths, but did not want to risk religious civil war by converting the nation, but the simple act of keeping the Empire officially Catholic also brought the same risk.

To his great relief, a Manx preacher named Wilbur Buseid began traveling the nation, appealing to the nationalism of Celts by preaching that the Romans had been the cause of the decline and near-extinction of the Celts. And thus, by translation, the Roman Catholic Church was an extension of Roman control over the Celts reaching across time to keep the Celts servile.

Buseid's preaching soon caught like wildfire not only in the Celtic Empire, but its dominions overseas. In 1578, Carribea officially converted to Protestantism, but an unregulated or organized form. When Buseid was called before the Celtic Imperial Court, he pleaded with Charles II to see the Reformation and convert to the Protestant faith. His oratory swayed Charles II, who declared in 1579 that the Celtic Empire would officially convert to a new form of "Celtic Christianity", a new state-controlled church simply referred to the Church of all Celts. The very first Reformist principle of this church was translating the bible into Scots Gaelic, in a new version known simply as the Emperor Charles Bible. Among other Reformist principles, divorces were legalized, priests were allowed to marry, and it was declared that saints would accept prayers, not just God Himself.

This new measure was greeted with acclaim by Celtic Protestants, but the majority Catholic regions of the Empire were outraged. A Catholic uprising in Ireland began very shortly after Charles II converted the Empire, with the purpose of spreading to the rest of the Empire and forcing the "heathens" back to the true faith. Notoriously, Charles II used the army to restore force in Ireland, often times giving the army free rein to do whatever it felt was necessary to restore the peace.

While no other major rebellions broke out, Catholic sentiments festered and simmered regardless. However, a large group of the remaining Catholics in Ireland and the Highlands did eventually convert to the Church of all Cetls, after their sense of Celtic nationalism was appealed to. Wales, likewise, slowly continued to convert to Protestantism. Brittany remained the largest holdout of Catholicism in the Celtic Empire, but ever so slowly began converting.

With the Celts entering the endgame of its conversion, a new problem arose. The French remained solidly Catholic, and seeing Charles II convert the Empire to Protestantism engendered deep outrage by the French King, Henry III. The Auld Alliance that had stood for more than a century was severed, and the Celts were suddenly alone on the world stage, with no major allies.

Desperate for a major ally, Charles II turned to their not-enemy Denmark, which was also a Protestant nation. Denmark's Kalmar Union was fractious, with Sweden threatening to leave the union. In 1582, Charles II approached Denmark, promising that in exchange for an alliance, the Celts would assist the Danes in any possible Swedish bid for independence. Denmark, happy to receive some support in any way possible, agreed.

However, the Swedes lay docile for years after the Celts formed a league with the Danes. Charles II died in 1590, leaving the Celtic Empire in yet another transition period while his son, Prince James, became James V, Emperor of all Celts, at the age of 15. Sensing that the Celts were unable to respond immediately, the Swedes began an uprising against the Danes, launching the Second Kalmar Civil War.


	7. James V (1590 - 1609)

James V was 15 when he ascended to become Emperor of all Celts, and immediately, the Danes called the Celts into war when Sweden. The young teen, inexperienced as he was, nevertheless elected to travel to Denmark with his armies and command from the front lines. Danish forces were stuck defending Copenhagen against a Swedish naval siege. With the arrival of the Imperial Celts Navy along with the nominal Norwegian navy, the Swedish navy was sent into a retreat across the Baltic Sea.

Celtic forces then began the invasion of Sweden proper in 1592, meeting with the Danish and Norwegian armies in the city of Kalmar, driving on Stockholm. When the Winter of 1592 began, Celtic armies braved the harsh weather of the Scandinavian winter to begin laying siege to Stockholm. While the city would later fall the following Spring, the self-proclaimed King Carolus I Vasa retreated to the Aaland Islands and continued to defiantely hold out while the Danish-Celtic Coalition continued to occupy the rest of the nation, working all the way around through "Saamiland" and through Finland. His control remained tenuous, however, and by the year 1595, his effective control had been reduced to the Aaland Islands. By that time, the Celts were able to launch an assault into the islands, forcing Carolus to surrender. Sweden was returned to the rule of Queen Margaret II of Denmark, who seized the opportunity to unify the Kalmar Union into a single nation, the Empire of Scandinavia. At once, the Celts had gained a massively strong new ally to replace France.

The Celts had created a stable network of colonies across North America, and now sought to expand further. A naval fleet transported a small army to the Indian Subcontinent, and forcibly ceded the territory of Goa to the Celts to use as a naval base. From here, the Celts also forced the concession of a small port in Madagascar. Not long after this, a new colonial fleet sailed to the Cape of Good Hope and established the African Cape Colony, while another fleet arrived at Cape Horn and created the South American Cape Colony. While these colonies could not produce much initially, both soon found a niche in sheep herding, exporting the wool to the Empire's homeland.

James V was pleased with the Empire's progress overseas, and sought to counter French power and defend Brittany from French aggression. New fortifications were erected along the Breton-French border in order to protect the Celtic Empire's only land border. The French, likewise, built fortresses along the border as well, particularly in Fontenay and Caen. Tensions between the former allies remained high, but peace prevailed.

The peace in the Celtic Empire remained through the end of James V's reign. However, in Europe, problems were brewing in the Holy Roman Empire. Protestant nations hd banded together into a Protestant League, while the Catholics had created a similar Catholic League. The stage was set for religious war in Europe, the likes of which had never been seen.


	8. James VI (1609 - 1934)

Shortly after James VI rose to become Emperor of all Celts, Europe's peace was shattered. The Protestant League declared a rebellion in the Holy Roman empire, and sought to replace Catholicism in the HRE with Protestantism. James VI sought to establish the Celts as one of the premiere protestant powers in Europe, and declared their support for the Protestant League. Curiously, the very Catholic France also sided with the Protestants, largely out of a rivalry with Habsburg Austria. This meant that for the first time in some decades, the Celts were on the same side of a war as the French. Scandinavia, still strongly aligned with the French, aligned with the Protestant League as well. However, in another surprising twist, the Ottoman Empire also sided with the Protestants, also wanting to see the Austrians brought down. The relatively weak Protestant League now had several powerful allies, although Austria did gain some support from the Russians, who wanted to see Scandinavia brought down a few pegs.

The War of the Protestant League officially began in 1611, with the Battle of Hamburg. Scandinavian forces launched an attack at the Catholic holdout of Hamburg, eager to try and bring the still largely Catholic Hanseatic League down. With this, the Celts began landing forces in Brittany and France to begin assaults on the western frontier of the Holy Roman Empire. Ottoman forces began moving against Austrian Istria, and Switzerland was invaded almost immediately.

James VI was intent to see the Protestants win, but was wary of the French. As they were Catholics fighting on the side of Protestants, their motives seemed hazy. Through the course of the war, the Celts remained somewhat distant of their wartime ally. Regardless, the ability to move forces directly across the English Channel was a boon for the Celts, who would have otherwise needed to land forces in Denmark before moving south against the HRE.

As the war dragged on, the Celts took a policy of taking down smaller city-states in order to begin whittling down the Protestant League. This began with the end of the Siege of Hamburg, followed by the fall of Lubeck and Bremen. The whole of the Hanseatic League was forced to surrender by the end of 1613. With northern Europe now largely under the control of the Protestants, Scandinavia and the Celts began pushing south through the many city-states of the HRE, while the Turks were busy trying to hold control of Budapest and the French now stood at the banks of the Rhine.

The war fell into a bad stalemate by 1614. Central and southern Germany had become a "virtual fortress" as the Austrians had managed to push the Ottomans back out of Budapest and south into the Balkans. The French were being held back at the Rhein, and the North German forces were being held off near Anhalt. With the war in a dead heat, but the Celtic mainland under no serious threat, James VI decided to focus elsewhere until the war could be brought to a close.

To this end, a Celtic explorer proposed that a Celtic colony be established on a set of islands all halfway around the world, the islands of New Zealand. The idea was costly, but James VI agreed and sent a colonial expedition. The colonists took two years to arrive, getting there in 1619, by which time a break had been achieved by the French. While the Austrians had pushed as far south as southern Serbia, the break by French forces diverted the attention of the Austrians enough to let the Ottomans stall their advance.

The one break by the French finally managed to allow the Celtic and Scandinavian forces to push south, with the Austrians suddenly scattering their forces to try and hold as much land as they could. This would prove to be futile, as Turkish forces succeeded in recapturing Budapest in 1622. By 1623, the Turks were advancing on Vienna, and the Celtic-Nordic forces were moving towards Bavaria. The French managed to relieve the small Protestant pocket of Ravensburg from Catholic control in 1624, and began driving on Munich. With the Catholic League facing defeat, city-states began rapidly surrendering, until only Austria and Bavaria were left in the league.

Munich was captured by Celtic, Nordic, and French forces in 1625. Vienna, unlike the failed attempts of 1529, finally fell to the Turks. With all support gone for the war, what remained of the Catholic League was forced to surrender in 1626. The implications were colossal. With the Treaty of Ravensburg, the official faith of the Holy Roman Empire was made Protestant. The Catholic House of Habsburg was removed from the throne of the HRE, and the Catholic Electors were stripped of their status. King Andrej I of Bohemia was elected as the first Protestant Emperor, to great fanfare. However, the HRE was thusly declared to be heretical by the Pope, although this didn't matter much. The Turks claimed most of Transylvania from the Austrians as their cut of the victory, and the Hanseatic League cities in northern Germany were annexed by Scandinavia.

One of the larger effects of the war was a de-escalation of tension between Scotland and France. While both remained divided over matters of faith, the Celts and French had fought on the same side of a war once again. While James VI and King Francis V of France would maintain a rivalry, the rivalry had a much lighter tone. The Celts and French were remembering their old alliance and friendship. James VI died in 1634, and passed the throne to his grandson, who rose to the throne as James VII.


	9. James VII (1634 - 1640)

James VII came to the throne as the Emperor of a strong and glorious nation. With the nation reaching a new Golden Age, the Empire stood as the self-professed most powerful nation in Europe. It had many reasons for stating this, including a modern and strong navy and army, a sprawling colonial Empire, and a happy and productive populace.

Things were not entirely happy, however. Since its founding, the Celtic Empire had largely been an absolute monarchy whose Parliament had varying degrees of control over the Empire. The Parliament, however, wanted to have more control over the nation, and at the same time, the people had begun to desire more influence and control over the Celtic government. James VII, however, believed in the "divine right" of a Monarch to rule their nation, and thus believed that he was the only one truly able to rule the nation.

This lead to tensions between the Parliament and James VII, as well as engendering unrest among the populace of the Empire. Abroad, a similar problem was emerging. James VII heavily believed that the Celtic homeland should act as middle man between the Celtic colonies and other European nations. To this end, heavy tariffs were placed on colonial trades with other European nations, effectively limiting their trade options to the Celtic Empire. The colonies soon grew to despise James VII, with some threatening a revolt for independence from the Celtic Empire.

James VII soon found himself with enemies everywhere in the Empire. His colonies despised him, the Parliament hated him, and the people were rapidly growing to despise him as well. However he remained steadfast in stating that he deserved to be the one true ruler of the Empire. The final straw came in 1640, when James VII attempted to use a Royal Decree to abolish the English Parliament. The people of England revolted against James VII, with some declaring that England should secede from the Celtic Empire as a whole.

While England would remain part of the Celtic Empire, the rebellion against the sudden attempt by James VII to restore the monarchy's full power soon spread to Brittany, then to Ireland, then to Wales, and finally into Scotland. The whole country had lost faith in James VII, and he was forced to concede that he had lost the "Divine Right" by the will of the people. He abdicated, and was later executed, in 1640.

The new question was "Who will replace James VII?" He had abdicated without an heir, thus leaving no direct heirs to the throne. However, James VII had a sister, Princess Anne. She was pregnant at the time, and the Celtic Parliament thus declared that a regency would be set in place until Anne's child came of age to be coronated. Anne, however, was not satisfied simply giving her child the throne.

Princess Anne thus went to the Parliament and said that in exchange for naming her as the Empress, she would create a more cooperative relationship between the Parliament and the Monarchy. Eager to regain control after James VII's reign, the Celtic Parliament abolished the regency by changing its terms from "Lady Anne Stuart's male heirs" to "Lady Anne Stuart _and_ her male heirs." Thus, in November of 1640, Princess Anne was coronated as Anne I, Empress of all Celts. She was now the second Empress Regnant of the Celtic Empire.


	10. Anne I (1640 - 1657)

Anne I came to power on a promise of increased Parliamentary power, but the first year of her reign was also characterized by lowering tariffs on Colonial exports to other European nations to incredibly low rates (4%), which in one fell swoop almost completely erased colonial independence sentiments. At the same time, Anne I also gave the colonies of the Celtic Empire increased self-autonomy, allowing them to govern themselves more and more.

At home, Anne I sought to try and repair relations with the French. She had seen that the Celts and French were capable of working together, instead of her grandfather James VI's ideas that the French and Celts were natural enemies. When Anne I gave birth to a son, the future Henry I, she made an agreement to a royal marriage with Prince Henry with Princess Marie of France. This single act managed to begin the process of detente with the French, as both had begun to feel endangered by the power of a new Portuguese-Spanish alliance.

The most notable event of Anne I's reign was the Charter of Rights, a revolutionary new document entailing the basic rights of all Celtic citizens. This was astoundingly different for the era, where the rights of the people tended to be given at the whim of the Monarch. Anne I, however, was entirely willing to give some basic rights to the Celtic peoples. Taking inspiration from the Magna Carta, Anne I's Charter of Rights effectively ended the last remnants of Feudalism in the Celtic Empire, reforming to an Administrative Monarchy that relied on its Parliament.

Anne I's acts in the Colonies also gained her a lot of appeal in the Celtic colonial dominions. In 1645, the colony of Borealia, which had been growing rapidly, petitioned for greater self-governance and autonomy, with the pledge that it would remain loyal to the Celtic Empire. Accepting their request, Borealia was granted a new charter that allowed it to form a local colonial assembly, which elected Andrew Galvin as the first Royal Governor of Borealia. This had a mixed effect in Borealia in regards to its citizens. While many appreciated that their dominion now had greater self-autonomy, others felt that after some time, Borealia was capable of governing itself as an independent nation. Anne I, however, did not tolerate this sort of dissent, and gave Borealia the capacity to silence dissidence within its borders.

Through the last 7 years of her reign, 1650 - 1657, Anne I also granted democratic charters to Meridia, Carribeia, and the fairly young colonial dominion of New Zealand, which had named itself New Lothian in honor of its Scottish homeland. A new colonial dominion had also formed in the area around the Santee River, which its founder named Maryland, after their Empress. Under Anne I, democratic governments became a very common feature in the Celtic Dominions. However, these governments could only manage a small range of internal affairs, and even then with the authority of the Celtic monarch. True self-determination was a long ways away.


	11. Henry I & David III (1657 - 1703)

Anne I's son Henry had been born a very frail child, not even being able to stand on his own. He had been born in early 1641, and had come to the throne at the age of 16. Even then, he was mostly bald, and had trouble speaking. Because of this, the newly coronated Henry I was often said to be holding the throne for his brother, who was seen as the last hope for the Stuart Dynasty, given as how Henry I was sterile.

Regardless of his rapidly failing health, Henry I managed one major milestone in Celtic history. Meridia had been growing rapidly to the south and west, and its frontier had soon come into conflict with Portugal's colony of Brazil. The governor of Brazil, Paulo Fidalgo, was beating the war drums and threatening to secure Brazil's territorial claims by force. Portugal had been facing problems with an expansionary war in Indonesia, and didn't want to split its focus with a war in South America. As such, Portugal sent diplomats to the court of Henry I to negotiate a settlement. Despite the issue relating to the borders of their colonies, neither Meridia nor Brazil had representatives at this meeting. The result of these meetings was the division of the border between Meridia and Brazil at the Araguaia River, with a straight line then continuing the border to the Paraguay River. This division gave Meridia most of the interior of South America, with Brazil keeping most of the coast.

Henry I died of heart failure at the age of 20, and his 19 year old brother became Emperor David III. David was in much better health, and promised a much longer reign than his brother. In fact, he had already produced an heir, Prince Charles. The Stuart Dynasty was secure.

Immediately upon coming to the throne, David III set about trying to restore an alliance with France. With Spain rapidly increasing its strength in the Americas, and Portugal allied to Spain, Austria had formed a partnership with the Spanish in an attempt to better dominate Europe. This was an excellent scenario for a Celtic alliance with France, since both of its traditional enemies had come together, and it was now virtually surrounded. France, still largely Catholic, was desperate for an alliance that could help it survive a two-front war. David III appealed to King Henry IV of France on the logic that the Celts and Scotland before them had been friends to France, and they had both risen above any challenge that had befallen them.

One major stumbling block remained, though. By 1663, there was a sizeable Protestant minority in France, mostly along the frontier with Brittany down through Bordeaux. France had been doing anything it could to obliterate the Protestants within its borders, but the Celts protested this treatment, saying that if France wanted its alliance, they would have to stop persecuting the French Protestants. France reluctantly agreed, managing the Settlement of 1664, a religious peace that guaranteed the religious freedom of Protestants in France, as well as in France's one colonial dominion of Quebec. This caused a degree of unrest in France, but the peace ultimately held. Religious war had been avoided.

With the tensions between Catholics and Protestants quelled, David III eagerly signed into action the recreation of the Auld Alliance, restoring the friendship between the Celts and France that had been severed more than a century ago. Not only this, but the last of the embargoes that had been in place since the initial conversion of the Celtic Empire were torn down, creating free trade between the two nations once again.

This nation came at a critical time. Austria was facing another round of distrust in its position as the Emperor of the HRE, and wanted to prove its strength to the Empire. Word of the newly restored Auld Alliance had not yet reached Austria, and Emperor Francis I saw the weak France as a chance to prove his might to the Empire. On 12 April 1665, Austria declared war on France to humiliate them. The very next day, word arrived that the Celts had reformed their alliance with France. The thought was astounding. Not only were the Celts one of the strongest armies in Europe, they were Protestants, and France was still Catholic. Nations of the opposing were never supposed to form alliances. Because of this, Pope John XX officially excommunicated King Henry IV. Undaunted, David III began moving forces to Brittany to move through France and attack Austria and the Catholic nations in the HRE that were allied with it.

The war was a landslide. While Francis I of Austria had been counting on Spain to come to their aid, two factors went against this. First, the Spanish dominions in the America suddenly experienced a wave of riots, diverting Spain's attention overseas. Second, the Spanish had not expected the Celts to ally with France, and word of the renewed Auld Alliance had reached Spain before Austria's declaration of war had. As such, Austria was left with a handful of nations in the Holy Roman Empire to fight alongside it.

As such, in just three years, France and Scotland had fought across Germany to attack Austria directly. As Franco-Celtic troops approached Vienna, the Austrians called for a white peace, but the Auld Alliance refused. Instead, the allies forced a humiliating treaty on Austria that drained the Austrian treasury, as well as recognizing the Auld Alliance as the victors in the conflict. Francis I was forced to accept.

In the fires of the Franco-Austrian War, the friendship between the Celtic Empire and the Kingdom of France was reformed. With the power of France suddenly reestablished in Europe, France was able to thumb its nose at the Pope for excommunicating Henry IV. Not only this, but the fact that the Catholic Church had excommunicated their leader for forming an alliance with a strong, powerful nation had started moving the French further towards Protestantism. In 1676, the first Protestant church in Paris was built. While Henry IV remained Catholic, he slowly began accommodating more Protestant ideologies in the nation.

By 1700, the Auld Alliance had held strong, and the French had begun a new colony at the mouth of the Mississippi River they had named Henriana in honor of Henry IV, who had overseen its founding. The French had also founded a new colony in Massachusetts Bay, calling it simply "New France", in the tradition of the Dutch calling their settlements along the Hudson River "Nieuw Holland" Maryland had grown south to the Ogeechee River, and north to the Neuse River. By the death of David III, the Celtic Empire had entered a new golden age. His son, however, had died, but he had produced a grandson before then. That son went on to become Emperor James VIII.


	12. James VIII (1703 - 1721)

James VIII inherited the Celtic Throne at a prosperous and proud time for the Celts. Their Empire had just recently gained control of the island of Sri Lanka, giving Celtica an inroad on the lucrative Indian markets. Their colonial Empire overseas was growing merrily, with each colony gaining more ability to work as a nation, but still remaining largely loyal to the Celts. Celtic culture had also gone through a renaissance, with Scots Gaelic having become a _lingua franca_ of the Celtic Empire, although the local dialects remained strong. Cornish, Manx, Welsh, Irish, and Breton were all widely spoken in their home nations. England kept speaking English, although it had absorbed many Celtic words, transitioning from Middle English to Modern English through a synthesis of itself with the various Celtic languages that were spoken across the Celtic Empire. Edinburgh had grown to be large enough to rival London in size, and the Empire as a whole had grown into the richest nation in Europe.

In 1705, Henri IV died, and his Protestant son Henri V came to the throne of France. The Papacy finally grew tired of France, and excommunicated the whole nation. Many French Catholics were aghast at the pettiness of the Catholic Church, and many renounced it entirely. With this, Henri V was able to officially sever France from the Catholic Church, and created the Church of France. With this, Spain and Portugal remained the last major holdouts of Catholicism in Western Europe. In the east, Eastern Orthodoxy was taking further hold, slowly becoming ever more powerful in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and starting to regrow in the face of the Sunni Muslim Ottoman Empire, whose Empire was slowly crumbling from the Balkans. Catholicism remained strong in Italy, southern Germany, Iberia, and the northern Balkans.

A new change came to pass in 1706. In that year, the Celts offered Morocco the sum of 100,000 Celtic Knots for the purchase of the small port town of Sabta, on the southern coast of the Straits of Gibraltar. Morocco, however, wanted another concession. Morocco had undergone several "westernization" efforts, and had come to see a colony in the new world as one of the best ways to be seen as an equal of the European powers. Seeing the chance to gain a strategic ally in North Africa, James VIII agreed to the sale. Sabta became a Celtic port, and the governor of Meridia was convinced to sell a small, 100 square kilometer territory in his nation that had remained unpopulated to become a Moroccan colony. In 1708, the first Moroccan colonists traveled to the newly named "Fas Aljadid", "New Fez". Upon their arrival, they constructed the first mosque in the new world.

The Celts had been exploring the western coast of North America for some time, and the Spanish had laid claim to nearly the entire west coast as part of their colony of New Spain. However, this claim was largely in name only. James VIII decided to undertake the task of actually colonizing this area. The most ideal place was what the Spanish called the "San Francisco Bay", and was thus marked for colonization by the New Caledonia Company, establishing the town of Saint Andrew at the mouth of the entrance of the bay. Spain protested, but its colonies began heaving again, and its attention was drawn away. As such, the colony of New Caledonia grew peacefully.

At home, France and Celtica banded together with Denmark to form the Triple Alliance, the most powerful alliance in all of Europe, bound together on their Protestant faiths. With this strength, Queen Margrethe II was able to unify the crowns of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden into the Empire of Scandinavia, which adopted a near-federal system much like the Celts had during the formation of their own Empire. Scandinavia then laid claim to Greenland as its own colonial dominion, claiming it as part of its Viking heritage. In the same vein, Scandinavia also laid claim to the island of Newfoundland, claiming it as the land of Vinland that Leif Erikson had discovered long before Columbus had stumbled across the New World. Several minor settlements had been created in Newfoundland by Nova Scotia, but they had never lasted terribly long. Because of this, it was easy to officially transfer Newfoundland to being Vinland. The Scandinavians were thus forming their own colonial Empire, several centuries behind the rest of Europe.

The reign of James VIII saw a peace in all of Celtdom that lasted through the end of his reign. In 1721, James VIII died, and left in his will that he wanted his daughter, the Princess Mary, to become the next Empress Regnant. The Rìoghail Chòmhdhail, the parliament of the Empire, accepted the accession of Mary to become Empress, but her younger brother Connor refused to accept it. On the day of Mary's coronation, Connor declared an open rebellion against his sister, proclaiming himself Connor I, Emperor of all Celts. A new civil war had begun.


	13. Mary II (1721 - 1737)

Mary II, Empress of all Celts, faced a challenge. She had the support of the Celtic government, the support of all the governments of the 8 Kingdoms of the Empire, and support among a large portion of the Empire, at home and abroad. The problem with her brother was that the nobles of the Empire supported her brother, Connor, the Pretender to the Throne. The nobles of the Celtic Empire had been having their power slowly eroded for the last 300 years, and many saw Connor as their last hope for keeping their power. Feudalism had been abolished in the Empire under Anne I, but traces of it remained. And in those traces lay the hope for the nobles to retake their influence in the Empire.

The Nobles had a sizeable army, composed of many well-trained militia men from the nobles' personal armies and their followers thought very strongly of their masters. They did not, however, have a navy, or a single strong base of power. Connor had set up his court in Warrington, in southwest Northumberland, but the majority of the rebel's power were northern Wales. The Celtic Army was also one of the strongest, most well-trained, and well-supplied armies in the world. What they lacked, though, was real fighting experience, as the Celts had not been involved in a war since the reign of David III. The Loyalist generals were complacent in their actions, resulting in several blunders that resulted in the loss of Gwynedd to the rebels, giving them a greater base of power.

By 1723, the Rebels had been making several gains against the Loyalists, albeit small ones. These victories still served to give greater morale to the Rebels, who fought harder and harder. Growing frustrated with her generals, Mary II went against thousands of years of convention and traveled south to lead the armies herself. Casting herself in the role of Boudicca, the legendary Celtic queen, complete with body paint, she personally lead a charge against the Rebel stronghold in Warrington, which lead to the capture of the city and thus forced Connor to relocate his court. Emboldened, the Loyalists called on Mary II to lead further campaigns. From 1723 to 1725, Mary II personally lead many attacks and battles in the campaign.

In 1724, nearing the end of "Connor's War", Mary II was struck in her left arm by a stray arrow that penetrated all the way through the bone. The damage was so great, that the medics decided the only way to fix it was to amputate it. Mary II gave explicit, special permission for the medics operating on her to harm the Empress, in order to save her life. The amputation was a success, and Mary II was able to resume leading the Loyalists herself, though from the rear due to her condition. By June 1725, Connor was forced to surrender, and was beheaded later that month. Immediately after the rebellion ended, a rather famous play was written, _Boudicca of the Iceni_ , meant to serve as an allegory for Mary II's leadership in the war.

Despite losing her left arm, Mary II continued to reign over the Celtic Empire in a new period of peace and stability. The Nobles, for their treachery, had their lands and properties confiscated by the Empire, enhancing its direct wealth. New Caledonia, on the west coast of North America, was growing slowly and steadily, soon reaching 20,000 people in 1728. With that, they were able to form their own colonial assembly. Celtic culture also reached the peak of its new renaissance, with many plays and stories being written in Scots Gaelic, Manx, Welsh, Cornish, Breton, and Irish, as well as English. Across the high courts of Europe, Scots Gaelic had entered a period of vogue, alongside French, the Austrian dialect of German, and Spanish. In regions far across the sea, Scots Gaelic was spoken by both nobility and common folk, and all was well.

However, in 1731, a new degree of friction began to grow. The elections of 1731 had put the Conservative Party into control of the Rìoghail Chòmhdhail, which wasn't that much of a problem, if it weren't for the appointing of Fearghal Ó Scolaighe, who held a hard-line mercantilist position. Not long after taking the office of Am Prìomhaire, the Prime Minister, he passed a series of acts that raised tariffs on most goods being shipped from the Dominions abroad to other countries instead of between dominions or to the Celtic Empire itself. This made a lot of people very angry, and Ó Scolaighe was soon being burned in effigy throughout the Celtic dominions abroad. Everywhere from Borealia to Patagonia to New Caledonia was unhappy about the situation. Mary II personally disliked it, but the power of the monarch had slowly been eroded over the last two centuries, and she had much less of an ability to act on it. Regardless, there was one important power that the monarch had retained: that every act of government needed the Monarch's approval. Using this, the Tea Act of 1732 was approved by the Rìoghail Chòmhdhail, but Mary II refused to approve it.

Outraged, Ó Scolaighe stated that Mary II would _have_ to approve it in order for the government to keep functioning. Mary II remained stubborn about the issue, and refused to approve it, putting the whole Celtic government into a deadlock. While many people at home disliked Mary II for putting the government at a standstill, the Dominions were very happy about the fact that the Empress was refusing to increase the tariffs. Eventually, Ó Scolaighe realized that the Empress was not going to back down, and facing mounting pressure from the Rìoghail Chòmhdhail, was forced to back down and dismiss the issue. With this egg on his face, Ó Scolaighe was forced to resign, leading to a shuffling of the cabinet that resulted in the much more free trade-minded Fearghas MacFhearghail coming to the position of Am Prìomhaire, who promptly began undoing most of the tariffs that had been levied, to the joy of the Dominions. Mary II soon became sung as a hero overseas, as the woman who fought for the rights of the colonists.

Mary II's reign continued peacefully after that, until 1737, when she died in her sleep. Her son Henry then took the throne as Emperor Henry II, but Henry II suffered from a major popularity problem. He was very fond of drinking and partying, and had already sired a bastard before he had even taken the throne. His wife, Jane of Mann, however, was much more well-liked, as she abstained from both drinking and excessive partying, as well as arranging many charitable movements for people across the Empire. In an attempt to try and give some added effort to his new reign, at his coronation, Henry II named his wife as co-sovereign of the Empire along with him, making them both the Head of State at the same time. Thus, Jane of Mann became known as Empress Jane of all Celts, the first and insofar only time in modern Celtic history two monarchs have reigned at the same time.


	14. Henry II & Jane (1737 - 1746)

After the ascension of Henry II to the throne and the coronation of Jane of Mann as his co-ruler, the Celtic Empire soon entered a new war, this time an expansionist war to take control of Madagascar. However, the dense jungles of the island prevented the Celtic army from effectively wiping out the armies of the native Imerina Kingdom. As such, the Celts were forced to resign themselves to actual control of the coastlines, and a tenuous control of the jungles and mountains of the inland. The conflict lasted for 4 years and went nowhere, expending a fair bit of manpower and cash from the Celtic coffers, and did a lot to engender unhappiness among the Celtic people with how Henry II ruled the Empire.

A much, much worse problem soon came into the spotlight. Slavery. Since the first Celtic outposts were established in West Africa along the Gold Coast, slaves had been exported for use in the Dominions abroad. This number hadn't been very large until the Celtic colonies in the Caribbean and the Amazon had been established, and once Maryland had been created, this number went ever higher. The Celtic Empire's homeland had only a few tens of thousands of slaves, almost all of whom were in domestic positions such as manservants and cooks. At the time, the main method by which the population of the Dominions had evolved from overseas migration to native population growth. The larger Dominions, such as Borealia and Amazonia, had large areas of land available for settlement by people moving from the cities along the coasts to the inland areas.

However, in many cases, the average Celtic citizen of a Dominion often found himself beat out by the plantation owners, who bought up vast areas of land that could then be worked by slaves, leaving very little for everyone else. A small abolitionist movement had grown up in the Celtic overseas dominions, which grew slowly but steadily. In 1741, Borealia became the first Dominion to abolish slavery, which it was able to do due to its primary industries (logging, fur trapping, and ship building) not requiring many imported slaves to do. Maryland, Carribeia, and Amazonia all refused to abolish slavery, though, and continued the use of slaves. Through the Settlement of 1742, however, the overseas slave trade was abolished in the Empire, and the Dominions would have to use its own supply of existing slaves to acquire new ones.

In 1742, Henry II died. In normal circumstances, the throne would have then gone to his son Connor, but Empress Jane argued that since she had been co-monarch, she was still technically in control of the Empire, and thus Prince Connor would need to wait until she died. The Rìoghail Chòmhdhail agreed, and Empress Jane ruled as the 4th Empress Regnant of the Empire from her husband's death onwards.

Jane's popularity outpaced her husband's considerably, and she soon brought a new level of stability to the Empire by ending an emergent conflict in southern India before it could escalate into war, instead focusing on colonizing the islands of Indonesia, centering around the islands of Makassar. Jane also personally oversaw the implementation of a new series of tax reforms that altered the previous version had been created in the 1680s, finally accounting for demographic shifts and changes, along with changes in inflation. The Celtic Empire's finances were thus finally stabilized, and the growing economic crisis was finally defused, resulting in a much smaller (but still present) economic recession.

Jane ruled until her death in 1767, by which time their son Connor was 23. He was then coronated as Connor I, taking the regnal name that his grandmother's brother had tried to claim so many years ago.


	15. Connor I (1746 - 1767)

Peace reigned in the Celtic Empire during the reign of Connor I. Celtic holdings overseas were loyal to the Empire, and the Empire had come to represent the greatest power in all of Europe, especially when complimented by the Triple Alliance. Europe's simmering distrust of everyone had slowly started dying down, and peace had come over the continent, barring several small skirmishes in the Holy Roman Empire. Distrust between Protestants and Catholics remained problematic, however.

As an extension of these problems, many of the Protestant princes of the northern Holy Roman Empire had begun to grow frustrated with the domination of the Imperial Throne by the Catholic Austria. In 1752, a new Protestant faction lead by Prussia-Brandenburg formally lead a mass secession from the HRE into forming the North German League, which at once touched off a new war in the HRE, albeit more concerning the authority of the Holy Roman Emperor over the Empire.

With the new chaos having broken the peace in Europe, nations began to take sides in the new conflict. Immediately, Scandinavia began calling its support for the NGL, and also began calling for support from France and the Celtic Empire. Seeing an opportunity to further weaken Catholicism in Europe, Emperor Connor I declared his support, as did Emperor Francois III of France. Spain came to the aid of the Habsburgs, as did the Papal State. Once again, Europe was embroiled in a conflict stemming from the Holy Roman Empire.

The War of the North German League was a landslide victory. With the Austrians more concerned on pressing their latest victories against the Ottoman Empire and a lack of support from the Papacy and Iberia, the Austro-Bavarian alliance quickly started falling apart as the French pressed from the west and the German-Scandinavian forces pressed from the north. In August 1753, the Holy Roman Empire was forced to surrender in the Treaty of Ulm, which effectively ended the Holy Roman Empire after 953 years of attempting to bring unity to the people of Central Europe. The remnants of the HRE, mostly Catholic and Southern German nations, formed the South German League, and fell into a bitter cold war with the North German League.

With Europe once again divided, the Celts were free to pursue their own overseas projects. The Triple Alliance was the most powerful bloc of nations in the world, bound together in their Protestant faith. However, in the Celtic Empire, the idea of democracy was catching on faster than in other nations. The Rìoghail Chòmhdhail by 1760 was the most powerful popular institution in all of Europe, with its leader, the Am Prìomhaire, effectively ruling with more power than the Emperor himself. The voting strate, however, was limited to the rich men of the Empire, those who paid around 10 per year in taxes to the government. Not only this, but the 8 Kingdoms that made up the Empire lacked any representative institutions of their own.

Regardless, the Empire had entered a new era that had been called the "Era of Enlightenment". All across the Empire, people discussed new ideas of freedom, equality, and independence. In the Dominion of Maryland, Jamestown had grown into the second-largest Scots Gaelic speaking city in the world, after Edinburgh itself. London, despite living in the shadow of the capital of the Empire, still competed for Edinburgh for the position of the largest city in the Empire. Celtic culture flourished under people such as Friseal Ruadh, Colum Kelly, and Alberz Le Bris, who composed masterworks of literature, music, plays, poems, and art, creating a distinct style that drew on folklore that had existed for hundreds if not thousands of years, as well as making adaptations of folk stories to create works such as _The Horned Women_ , along with making new stories of people making their way in the new societies of Europe such as _Madeline of the Cities_.

By the time Connor I died, the Celts stood at the crossroads of history, readying themselves for the next great period in time. And once again, history skewed into a new direction. The new James XI was a heavy believer in the old idea of the _ancien régime_ that persisted in France and most of Europe, believing that the democratic systems in the Celtic government were holding them back from their full potential. The Rìoghail Chòmhdhail was unhappy with the new Emperor, but they wanted to keep the Stuart Dynasty on the throne, as they had been for 396 years. James XI had largely concerned himself with parties and feasts rather than the government, and the Rìoghail Chòmhdhail had hoped that he would be easily manipulated in their favor.


	16. James IX (1767 - 1772)

The last gasp of Monarchical power in Celtica came during the relatively brief reign of James IX. James IX was inspired by the continuing absolute monarchies in most of Europe, and had come to believe that the Celtic system of democratic government was illegitimate, and even somewhat heretical. Taking the throne at the age of 24, the young Emperor was considered a party boy, favoring drinking and parties to government. However, when he was coronated, a remarkable change occurred where James IX suddenly sobered up and became a very serious monarch, at once denying any measure Parliament tried to pass if it did not please him.

This caused problems at once. The Celtic government had fallen into a pattern of approval of parliamentary dominance in the government, and James IX suddenly came to oppose it. With this, the government deadlocked again, but James IX quickly took to ruling by decree, ordering the revoking of several seats in Parliament that opposed his grasp at power and reducing the seats in the Rìoghail Chòmhdhail from 122 to just 78. This made a lot of people very angry, and before long there was talk of rebellion.

Among these men was Olghar Crombalach, a young man who had been inspired by the ideals of democracy in Greece and republicanism in ancient Rome. Crombalach quickly began organizing a resistance to James IX starting in 1768, with his base of power in Corcaigh in southern Ireland. The final straw came when James IX attempted to push Scots Gaelic as the only official language in the Celtic Empire, both at home and abroad. Facing several new mercantilist taxes, the Celtic Dominions had begun to grumble loudly about declaring independence from the Empire.

Crombalach saw that if he did not act soon, the Empire would come crumbling apart. In 1769, he launched his rebellion, beginning a series of attacks across the island of Ireland that culminated in the capture of Baile Átha Cliath in 1771, at which point, he believed that James IX would negotiate the return of the status quo. However, James IX refused to negotiate, and instead took a bold new move: he began treating the rebel-controlled Ireland as a new political entity, talking of the "rebel state of Ireland". It also had another effect: a new rebellion broke out in northern England and southern Northumberland to the same effect, and James IX treated these as secessionist rebellions rather than pro-democracy movements.

This alienated many of his supporters, who went on to begin supporting the rebels with small kickbacks from the Imperial treasury, further undermining the Emperor. In 1771, something unexpected happened. A group of rebels sparked a spontaneous demonstration that managed to storm Edinburgh Palace and capture James IX himself. The Emperor was dragged into the streets and beaten to death by the angry protestors, while much of the rest of the royal family fled, fearing reprisal. With the Imperial Family in hiding, it was unclear who the next Emperor would be, and thus, the nation entered an _interregnum_ in which sole power in the Empire was vested in the Rìoghail Chòmhdhail and the Am Prìomhaire. This period without a monarch on the throne of the Empire sometimes resulted in the nation being called the "Celtic Commonwealth" or the "Celtic Republic" by republicans who had favored the abolition of the monarchy. However, the vast majority wanted the monarchy, and for the next year, the search continued for the Royal Family. Finally, in February of 1772, the younger son of James IX was found, a young man of just 16 years old. The Rìoghail Chòmhdhail was happy with the young, impressionable man, they took him back to Edinburgh and coronated him as James X, ending the _interregenum_.


	17. James X (1772 - 1793)

In 1773, a new writer in France named Aurélien Génin published _The Strength of Nations_ , which detailed the growing ideology of the idea that each colonial dominion as ruled by a European nation was a proper nation in and of itself, and deserved to be free from their parent nations. This triggered a new wave of unrest across all the colonies across the New World, including the Celtic Dominions. At the time, the Celtic Dominions were Borealia, Maryland, Amazonia, Carribia, Patagonia, New Caledonia, and the newly formed dominion of Alyeska, while also including the Dominion of New Lothian all the way off the coast of Australia.

The Rìoghail Chòmhdhail was anxious over independence movements in the Dominions, and was eager to keep them loyal to the Celtic Empire. At the time, each of the Dominions possessed a Colonial Assembly, as a means of governing them with less direct attention from the Empire itself. Each Dominion's assembly was headed by a Àrd-Mhinistear, a High Minister, who acted as the Am Prìomhaire did in the homeland. As such, each of the 7 Àrd Ministearan were called to the Council of Edinburgh, to determine the future of the Empire. In 1772, all 7 of the Dominions combined had a population of 3,849,000 people, while the Celtic homeland had a population of 13,780,000. Fully 27% of everyone in the Empire lived outside the 8 Kingdoms that made up the homeland, and the Rìoghail Chòmhdhail could not ignore their desires and wishes any longer.

Fortunately, the Rìoghail Chòmhdhail was capable of recognizing this. In 1773, talks officially began, and began working for a solution for the future of the Dominions of the Empire. The Colonial governments at the time did not want formal independence, but instead wanted formal representation in the Celtic government. In June of 1773, during the 4th month of the talks, the Àrd-Mhinistear of Patagonia suggested a radical new concept: the integration of the Dominions into the Empire itself, forming a transcontinental nation that ruled all Celts across all parts of the world. The idea gained a lot of traction, with the idea of a Greater Celtic Empire appealing to the public of both the Celtic homeland as well as the dominions abroad. Not only would the Dominions be represented in the Rìoghail Chòmhdhail, the Empire would still keep control over the Dominions. In November 1773, the formal process of integrating the Dominions began.

Outside the Celtic Empire, however, things changed somewhat radically. In 1774, the Spanish colony of New Spain had grown increasingly resentful of Spanish rule. Seeing the political integration going on in the Celtic Empire, the Governor of New Spain approached King Philip III of Spain, asking for their own integration into Spain. Spain, however, refused, arguing that New Spain was a subject of Spain, and not part of it directly. After this, Spain began ordering tighter controls over the New Spanish government, to prevent any more of this "political heresy" to spread. This came on the heels of a new era of mercantilism in Spain, as a series of wars in Africa followed by an overproduction of silver in Argentina had sent the Spanish economy into a tailspin.

No Spanish colony was happy. In 1775, the Spanish colony of Argentina had come to be increasingly resentful of how much of their silver left for Spain. Spanish colonies in the Caribbean were growing more restless, owing to their need to trade with many other nations to keep their economies strong, thus rendering the mercantilist policies especially grating. And both New Grenada and Peru were growing ever more agitated by newly arisen nationalist sentiments following the publishing of a book in Spanish named _Nacimiento de una Nación_ , "Birth of a Nation", calling for a unified Spanish nation in the Americas formed of all the former Spanish colonies. Things came to a head in 1777, when a small crowd in Mexico City, the capital of New Spain, started protesting the increased prices of grain, but which quickly snowballed into a massive riot that moved through the city and caused massive damage to the buildings housing the colonial government, along with several houses owned by the nobility.

After pleas to the rest of Europe for help were met by failure, Spain was forced to try and crack down on its own Empire, which stretched from the Rio Grande to northern Patagonia. What had stood for almost 300 years was rapidly coming down, with Spain unable to effectively keep a hold on its own colonies. In 1778, the Latin American Wars broke out, with every colony Spain held in the New World declaring independence. Their fighting for independence was brief. Spain, faced with the total collapse of its Empire, couldn't hold out. They surrendered after just 3 months. The main bulk of the wars, however, came as soon as the Spanish surrendered. An abortive effort to make a single, unified Spanish-American nation failed at once, and they immediately fell into war with each other, each vying for control of contested regions that had only been kept peaceful by Spanish governorship. The Latin American Wars would last from April 1778 to September 1785.

With the Spanish Empire completely destroyed, other nations that had colonies in the new world began their own efforts to declare independence. The first effort came with Brasil, which only barely avoided its own war by Portugal offering to incorporate it into a new "United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and Angola-Mozambique", with even the fledgeling Portuguese African colonies being incorporated. Canada was also integrated into France, although the independence movement there hadn't been as strong. And New Grenada, the lone city controlled by Morocco, had been ruled directly for some time, and thus had already been considered a part of Morocco itself.

As such, the Celtic Empire was fully integrated by the year 1789, forming a new trans-continental Celtic Empire. This year became a storied event, when Celts all across the world became united as one. Things were not entirely rosy, however. Spain had fallen into total anarchy, with a loss as profound as its entire Empire in the New World. The Spanish branch of the House of Habsburg had either fled the nation or been executed by revolutionaries, who had carved the nation into many small, warring factions. The whole of Spain had become a failed state.

Out of this chaos would rise a woman who would become one of most well-known military commanders of the early modern era.


	18. Connor II (1793 - 1807)

While the Celtic Empire adjusted itself to the new situation of having annexed its former Dominions as full Kingdoms, Spain was in complete shambles. Various local warlords had carved out dozens of spheres of influence, leaving the nation in a massive civil war. In the north, however, a new figure arose.

Alesandes Ezkibel was the self-proclaimed _Konsulta_ , or Consul, of the quasi-nation known simply as the Basque Republic. This was incredibly unusual for a woman, especially in Catholic Spain at the time, but through a combination of a natural talent for military command, and ruthless determination, Ezkibel had become the effective dictator of the Basque nation. Many people laughed at her, merely because she was a woman doing the job of a man. However, she was doing the job incredibly well, going so far as to run a full government with various ministries, as well as collect taxes and maintain an army. Many toyed with the idea of forming an independent Basque nation for the first time since the middle ages, but Ezkibel had grander plans. In 1794, she lead her armies against the Leonese, another faction in northern Spain, and quickly overwhelmed them. News of her success quickly spread across Europe, and many nations began giving serious consideration to funding her effort to reunify Spain.

In 1795, Ezkibel began a new series of campaigns that secured the border regions with France, as well as coming to a peace agreement with Portugal, which had opportunistically annexed Galicia. Before long, her armies, swelling with forces enthusiastic for a reunified Spain, had marched as far south as Cadiz, and were soon moving in to retake the Balearic Islands. The final hurdle, Madrid itself, fell in 1797. With all of Spain under her control, the established powers of Europe expected her to give up power as the Consul of a now unified Spain, but her own ambitions meshed with those of the people she now governed. On the 17th of July 1797, Ezkibel had herself coronated as Empress Alexandra I of the Spanish, forming a new Spanish Empire. This sent shockwaves through Europe, but the peace that was held in place by the Triple Alliance was still expected to hold.

In the meantime, Alexandra I had begun the _Grand Progrès_ , the "Great Advancing", designed to turn Spain into a modern European nation. Among her new measures, she officially divorced the Catholic Church from the Spanish government, forming a newly secular nation, as well as decriminalizing many activities the Church had opposed. The army was modernized, and taxes were rebalanced. In particular, Spain adopted the "Meatrach" system of measurement that had become popular in the Celtic Empire, forming a single and standardized system of measurement. By 1799, Spain had advanced over decades worth of progress in just two years, and had become a true power in Europe once again.

This is where Alexandra became very dangerous. In 1800, she suddenly prompted an invasion of Galicia, to reconquer it from Portugal. In a mere 10 weeks, she had managed to retake the territory, and had also begun a direct invasion of Portugal itself. By May 1800, she had managed to capture Lisbon, and toppled the House of Braganza, installing a new King of Portugal that was friendly to her regime, establishing her first puppet state. In this chaos, King Manuel IV fled to Rio de Janeiro, where he established his court in exile.

Europe was outraged, and France received permission from the Triple Alliance to cut Alexandra down to size. However, in the Battle of Andorra, the French forces that had been sent to take Madrid were suddenly ambushed and decisively defeated. Alexandra soon began an invasion into France, leading the Triple Alliance to declare war on Spain, starting what became known as the War of the First League. It went terribly, and ended in the capture of Paris in 1801. France was split in two: the Kingdom of France in the north, and the Kingdom of Aquitania in the south, making ever more puppet regimes. After this, Alexandra lead a new invasion of Italy, which culminated in the capture of Rome, barring a small holdout on the Vatican Hill where the Papacy had built St. Peter's Basilica, the holiest church in all of Catholicism. Rather than risk backlash by the Catholics of her growing Empire and executing the Pope and the Cardinals, Alexandra left the Papacy holed up in the Vatican, signing what became known as the Vatican Treaty, where what remained of the Papal States was reduced to just the territory inside the walls of Vatican.

By 1805, Alexandra's "Second Spanish Empire" had annexed all of Iberia directly, as well as annexing the islands of Sardinia, Sicily, and Corsica, and southern Italy. The Celtic kingdom of Brittany was a stubborn holdout, too well defended by the Celts. The War of the Third League started in 1806 with the Spanish invasion of Austria, bringing the South German League into a conflict that aligned them with the Celts and the Danes, and resulting in the fall of Vienna in 1807, bringing the Spanish sphere of influence to the border with the North German Federation. By that year, the Spanish seemed unstoppable, with no nation or coalition of nations being able to stop Spain's massive invasion across the continent. Austria had fallen, and become another client state, and the rest of the South German Federation being reshaped into the German Confederation with the Spanish invasion of the North German Federation. By the time of Connor II's death, the only nations left to carry out a proper war against the Spanish Empire were the Celtic Empire, the Scandinavian Empire, and the Russian Empire. All three were flagging in their motivation to fight, and the failure of the War of the Fourth League lead to Russia to sign a peace treaty with Spain that brought them into the Sistema Europeo, the sprawling series of client states and coerced allies that Spain had all across mainland Europe.


	19. Charles III (1807 - 1812)

At the start of the reign of Emperor Charles III, a sorely-needed victory came for the Celtic Empire. The Spanish, along with a French reinforcement, engaged in a naval battle with the Celtic Navy off the coast of Dover, in a cataclysmic engagement that lasted for a full week. With the timely arrival of a Scandinavian fleet, the Scando-Celtic fleet was able to decisively defeat the Franco-Spanish navy, destroying nearly half of the Spanish fleet and forcing Alexandra to permanently shelve any plans for an invasion of the Celtic Isles themselves, although she did begin a renewed push to take Brittany. The Spanish were able to take Nanoed, the capital of Brittany, and move further out towards Roazhon, but were ground to a halt.

After the surrender of the North German Federation, which was absorbed into the German Confederation, cracks finally began to appear in the seemingly invincible Spanish facade. An attempt to invade Denmark lead to the Spanish getting bogged down trying to cross into Sjaelland, but were forced back by the Scandinavian navy. A Spanish attempt to get Sweden to rebel notwithstanding, Alexandra was forced to withdraw from Denmark.

With cracks formed in the Spanish Empire, Russia, which had evaded much of the chaos that had enveloped Europe, soon began to break with the treaty it had signed with Spain, and began trading back and forth with the Celts and Scandinavia. Frustrated, Alexandra personally lead an army against Russia, but due to problems with planning, the invasion only got underway in September. With winter quickly setting in, Alexandra was barely able to capture Warsaw and create the new Kingdom of Poland before setting out for Moscow, where the Russian Emperor Nicholas III was. By the time she reached Minsk, however, it was November, and the army had gotten bogged down, suffering from the Russian scorched earth policy.

Then, in January 1809, the news came that Alexandra had died outside Minsk from the severe cold.

The effect was immediate. Her successor, one of her nephews who took the regnal name Philip VI, was nowhere near the leader or administrator his aunt had been, which resulted in the whole of the European System falling apart as formerly servile nations reasserted their independence, and effectively brought about the end of the whole Second Spanish Empire, culminating in the War of the Sixth League, where Madrid itself fell, and Philip VI was pushed off the throne. Spain was reduced to its former borders, before the start of what had become called the "Alexandran Wars". However, Europe was changed forever. The sense of German nationalism brought about by the brief German Confederation surged through the former nation, which was spearheaded by Austria. By 1811, the German Confederation had reformed into the new Empire of Germany, headed by the Austrian Habsburgs from Vienna, while Hungary became a separate nation, not wanting to join with a vastly new German nation.

In Italy, a similar sense of Italian nationalism resulted in despair for the Papacy when a man named Doroteo Valiante managed to lead the former nations of Italy into forming the new Empire of Italy, with its capital in Rome. It did, however, honor the Vatican Treaty, and allowed the existence of Vatican as a strange new city-state within its own capital.

The Alexandran Wars were the most monumental wars ever fought in Europe. Within the space of just 10 years, all of Europe had been formed from centuries worth of squabbling minor states egged on by greater powers, to a continent dominated by vastly powerful new Empires, all of which now eyed each other as enemies, rivals on the world stage. And out of it all, the Celtic Empire emerged as the strongest naval power of all Europe, and indeed one of the strongest nations in all the world, with an Empire that spanned 6 continents, a rapidly industrialized economy, and a strong and stable government.

The future was bright.


	20. Anne II (1812 - 1836)

The end of the old age of Europe had come. North and South America consisted of either former colonies that had been integrated into their parent nations, or a large number of independent Latin American states. Europe, brought to peace by the end of the Alexandran Wars, truly never wished for war again. And yet, with changes as monumental as the unification of Germany and Italy, the rapid decline of the Ottoman Empire, and the starting of a new colonial race in Africa, war would be inevitable someday. But this was not that day.

Anne II came to the throne of a democratic, prosperous, and peaceful Empire. She was the 20th monarch of the Celtic Empire, a nation born at the end of the Medieval Era that had changed and morphed over the last 343 years, adapting with the times to continue its survival. It now presided over 280 million people worldwide, the most of any European nation, and had evolved into an "Empire upon which the Sun never sets." Shaped through wars, conquests, marriage, and diplomacy, the Celtic Empire was now the forefront nation of the world, but even it was now challenged by the rise of Germany, which was rapidly catching up to the Triple Alliance on its own.

Over nearly 400 years, the world had changed drastically. Once, London had seemed like a lifetime away from Edinburgh. In the modern day, it was becoming faster and faster to travel between the two principal cities of the Empire, with the advent of the railroads. It had once been a big risk to life and limb to cross the oceans to the New World, in search of a new life. Now, people moved back and forth between Europe and the Americas daily, on a regular basis. The world was quickly becoming smaller.

In the east, things were changing rapidly as well. The Japanese people, seeing the rapid rise of the European nations and fearing for their own nation, had overthrown the Bakufu in a massive rebellion in 1815, and the new government of the Empire of Japan had dedicated itself to playing catch-up with Europe, fighting a massive war with the Qing Dynasty in 1824 that succeeded in conquering Korea. Many European nations took no notice of this, but the Celts had quickly formed the Celtic-Japanese league, ensuring that while the Japanese could attack any other European colony in the east it liked, they would never go after the Celts. Indeed, the Japanese had become inspired by the Celts, sending many emissaries to the Celtic homeland to learn their ways and culture. Schools in Irish, Scots Gaelic, English, Breton, Manx, Cornish, and Welsh opened up in Japan, and the kilt rapidly became very popular among the aristocracy of Japan. As a gesture of goodwill, the Empire of Japan was gifted its own, specific tartan pattern, incorporating the red and white of their flag into its pattern.

Many of the Latin American nations had managed to grow. With Europe too distracted by the Alexandran Wars, they had been granted the time to develop their governments and their national identities. Mexico had grown into the strongest of them, expanding north through the great plains of North America as far north as the Missouri River. Hispaniola had balkanized, and now the many islands once controlled by Spain had become independent nations, each with their own identity. Gran Colombia and the Andes Confederation had both gone through many troubles, nearly fracturing in a civil war, but had managed to hold together. The nation of Rio de la Plata, however, had devolved into an all-out civil war over the issue of slavery by 1819. Seeing an opportunity, the reconstituted Kingdom of Spain had actually mounted an invasion to try and retake even part of their lost colony, but the rest of Europe had quickly put a stop to that. The Plata Civil War would culminate in the breaking of the nation into two pieces: the Republic of Argentina, and the United Provinces of South America, which soon developed a grand but unattainable goal of unifying all of South America in a free and independent nation.

Europe had changed massively, entirely, and permanently. The founding of the Celtic Empire had almost become the subject of legend, with the tales of James II, James III, and Mary I bravely bringing unity and peace to the Celtic Isles getting so entangled in myths and legends that it was increasingly hard to distinguish fact from fiction.

One thing was for certain. There would still so much history left to write. And on 1 January, 1836, the world bravely entered the new era.


End file.
